Psychoanalysis of the Scarlet and the Forest

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Nathaniel Hawthorne's literature can easily be used as a prime study for psychoanalysis. Freud's ideas and assumptions can be perfectly linked in a psychoanalysis of The Scarlet Letter. In fact, Freud himself has studied Hawthorne's characters in order to develop his postulations about the unconscious. His ideas about the id, the ego, and the superego are extremely significant when taking a look at characters in The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne displays the unending war between social expediency and moral righteousness in the mind of the main character, Hester. Regardless of Hester's conscious morality, she is playing out her subconscious desires, which is distinctly Freudian. Hawthorne and Freud ironically have harmonizing views on people's actions and state of mind. Freud's ideas suggest that people are ruled to a large degree by their subconscious. Nevertheless, people are judged by their actions and not by their subconscious yearnings and agendas. In result, Hester is branded as an adulteress for her actions, but unlike her weak lover, Dimmesdale, she took her ostracism very seriously and wore her 'A' proudly. In that way, she rebelled against the community and its unconscious neurotic values.

Hawthorne effectively portrays the subconscious mind, using the forest and how it is mysterious and forbidden, just like the portion of the mind called the id. The lack of guilt that Hester experiences and the tremendous remorse that Dimmesdale feels, displays the ideas of the conscience that Freud came up with and how it is the contradiction between the subconscious ego and the superego. In the novel, Heather is used as a reflection of the subconscious thoughts of the Puritan men and woman, while Dimmesdale represents their conscious mind and actions. Freud’s theories are especially interesting when applying them to The Scarlet Letter and their characters because it proves that everyone has subconscious yearnings that sometimes do not agree with their own superego, a completely different portion of their mind.

Dimmesdale, however, is tormented with shame and guilt for his sin and no act of contrition can redeem the purity in his mind.

The forest in this case, is a really good symbol for the obscurity and mysterious nature of the subconscious. Just like the forest, the subconscious mind is dark, secretive, and extremely private. The thoughts of the subconscious mind, the id, are forbidden to the Puritan’s moral standards just as the things that go on in the forest are forbidden as well. However, the forest to Hester is like a lolly-pop to small child’s eyes.

Here in the forest, Hester is no longer tripping over one commandment or another, and she lets her subconscious mind control her. She feels that the burden of all the laws and religion have done no good for her anyway. Being a social outcast, she finds no invitation to repentance in the law that crushes her. She does not feel that what she is doing is completely immoral, but that she is simply rejecting the laws of her religion. Freud says that guilt and shame come from the contradiction between one's subconscious ego and one's superego, which is the conscience. Hester doesn't seem to have that contradiction in her mind; therefore she feels neither shame nor guilt for committing adultery. Hester while not particularly carrying a lot of shame morally, is still playing out the subconscious desires of the whole community.

“It straggled onward into the mystery of the primeval forest. This hemmed it in so narrowly, and stood so black and dense....

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